Sustainability

For nearly 20 years, 3Degrees has measured, mitigated, and reported publicly its greenhouse gas emissions.  Our work conforms to the same industry standards adopted by many of the world’s largest corporations. Important tenets of this work include:

• We publish our greenhouse gas emissions inventory annually on our website, and make this footprint and additional climate-related risk and opportunity disclosures available at the SME Climate Hub (access our report here). 
• Though our footprint is small, we recognize our responsibility to reduce it and dedicate resources to emission reduction efforts every year. See our footprint discussion below to learn about our current work.
• We have committed to net zero emissions by 2050 through the Science-Based Targets Initiative’s small and medium enterprise program.  See our commitments here.
• We fund an internal carbon budget of $100 per employee per year for beyond-value-chain mitigation. These funds are used to purchase carbon removal and reduction credits as we acknowledge our continuing emissions of greenhouse gases.

We believe the work we do – enabling companies to take urgent action on climate change – is our most important contribution to worldwide efforts to reduce carbon emissions.  Therefore we maintain company-wide Climate Impact goals that require us to increase our measured impact year-over-year.  These goals steer us toward developing and offering our customers products and services that have more vs. less impact on planetary emissions, and that engage more organizations in the fight against climate change.  All employees’ compensation is influenced by our performance against these goals.

We engage our employees in our sustainability efforts and, importantly, we seek to provide careers that are themselves sustainable.

• Through volunteerism, guest speakers, knowledge sharing about sustainability at home, and more, we encourage and enable our employees to act on sustainability at home and at work.
• We strive to create a fulfilling and vibrant career environment that recognizes and embraces the diversity of our employees’ backgrounds, jobs, and career trajectories., all while working in support of 3Degrees’ mission. Learn more about how we support employees here.

3Degrees’ values of Passion, Respect, Commitment, Integrity and Diversity form the core of our company culture and how we choose to act in the world.  Learn more about our values here.

Our Board of Directors and executive management team have implemented policies and procedures that codify, clarify, and reinforce our intentions with respect to sustainability.  These include:

• 3Degrees Group, Inc. is incorporated in the State of Delaware as a Benefit Corporation. As such we are required to provide a public benefit and report periodically to our shareholders on our progress.  Our stated public benefit is:  “To have a positive effect on the Earth’s environment and to reduce the negative effects of climate change on the Earth.”  We are also a Certified B Corp.
• We have adopted a Management System for Environmental, Social and Governance Affairs.  This system details relevant policies and goals and explains how they are implemented and overseen by management and the Board of Directors.  It includes an ESG Policy, an Environmental Policy, and it references additional policies pertaining to people, pay, performance, business principles, ethics, compliance, and other related topics.  Download a copy here.
• Our Chief Sustainability Officer reports to the CEO and is operationally responsible for our sustainability strategy and its execution.  The CSO leads quarterly company-wide reviews of progress toward sustainability policies and goals, and reports results to the CEO. Our Board of Directors reviews progress annually.
• We have adopted policies around Business Ethics and Compliance, and separately on the Business Principles we uphold to ensure our products and services meet our own standards for appropriate climate action.